Giles Whiting Foundation, and the New York University School of Law made my studies at Yale and the completion of the dissertation possible. The Danforth Foundation, the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Mrs. David Montgomery profoundly influenced the way I thought about working-class history.Īt a time when the federal government denied funding to gay-related research and art, I was fortunate to receive the support of several private foundations and research centers. John Boswell’s scholarship, his counsel, and even his disagreements with me inspired, facilitated, and sharpened my work at every stage. Her enthusiasm for my work, her perceptive criticisms of it, and her breathtaking insights into the problems it addressed, as well as the model of her own scholarship, meant more to me than she could know. Many of us were privileged to have Nancy Cott as an advisor.

I was fortunate to be in a graduate program with Eric Arnesen, Jeanne Boydston, Ann Braude, Ileen DeVault, Dana Frank, Lori Ginzberg, Carol Karlsen, Regina Kunzel, Molly Ladd-Taylor, David Scobey, Amy Stanley, and other students who became my friends and teachers and made Yale a wonderfully collegial and stimulating place to study American history. The book began as a dissertation in the History Department of Yale University.

T HIS BOOK HAS BEEN A LONG TIME IN THE MAKING AND WOULD NOT HAVE been possible without the help of many people.

George chauncey books